


there’s no room for innocence

by ElasticElla



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: F/F, Mild Gore, Mythology - Freeform, Sirens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 09:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10086758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElasticElla/pseuds/ElasticElla
Summary: The world steals Cleophas from her on a cold winter morning.





	

**Author's Note:**

> title from fever ray's keep the streets empty for me   
> beta'd by [candace](http://aleclightwoodisbetterthanyou.tumblr.com/) <3
> 
> still plucking prompts from the ficathon & starting [my bingo card \o/](http://bizeke.tumblr.com/post/157962460895/squeee-im-so-excited-for-this-go-get-your-own)

Magdalena searches the world for Cleophas, throws herself into the air over and over until the cruel winds rip every last feather from her wings. She crashes on a small island, one that barely deserves the name, a few large rocks and just enough sand to lay on. She automatically brings her wings up to cushion her fall, and the bare hollow bones smash, only two jagged stubs left upon her back.

She weeps, not for the loss of her wings, but for the loss of Cleophas, of any way to find her.

Magdalena sings her grief to the ocean; in song it is near poetic, near mythic, nearly impersonal. Magdalena sings, her echos bringing her words to far away waves so they may not come back to her ears. But such tragedy does not die easy, does not like to be unheard. Her words seek new ears, find a ship full of curious ones. They slip in like a sweet addiction, and they sail towards the voice, needing to hear more.

Magda sings on, knows not of those that come, knows only of one gone. The ship crashes into rocky shores, and she barely hears it, to redirect her attention is to let the pain in, let it be hers again. Magdalena does no such thing, expels all she can: the pain, the loneliness, the helplessness, the despair.

She sets her person aside, sets her love aside, lets dissociation ease her mind. ****

.

The shipwrecks build up around her island, fasten her in infamy. She knows her island grows, that it takes longer to reach the open water, but she cares not for details. It’s getting harder and harder to ignore reality, the tiniest bits threatening to overwhelm her. Questions of her transformation tease the edge of her mind, for surely she is no longer the same. She has not eaten, not been mortal, since she crashed upon this cursed land, has been twisted into something new. (Something unlovable, something--)

The shipwrecks create a full island, give her a desolate land to rule. The shipwrecks build up, and her song continues, reaches to the furthest corners of the world. It is in one of them, a dry land that takes her words ages to cross, that the right person hears them. For it is in that land that one seeks the place Cleophas has been taken, for her love has been taken too. And it is in that land that the girl with fire in her hair strikes a deal to rid the ocean of its monster for passage to the realm below.

The girl sails across the ocean with wax in her ears, and that of her friends’. She stands before Magdalena, wet hair and unhealed scratches but whole, and says the name.

_ Cleophas _ .

Like a spell, Magda crumbles, voice cut and tears quick.

“No, no,” the girl says, “I can take you to her. You must only swear to never sing again.”

It takes longer to agree than it once would, new insecurities bind her tongue. For if Cleophas no longer loves her, what can she do but sing?

The girl calls for a faerie, and then there’s a portal to hell itself and Magda at least knows why she never found her before. The girl is fearless, and Magdalena follows, would go far farther to ensure she sees Cleo once more.

Fire-hair, fire-soul stands before the devil himself without a trace of doubt.

The devil laughs, asks if she’s come for her lover or her mother.

“I’ve come for you,” she says, draws a blade and attacks.

Magdalena searches as they clash, forgotten on the side. Souls upon souls, many a one that curses her image. But she seeks and seeks, knows Cleophas must be here.

She finds her slow, goes to every cell before the gardens. Cleophas is there, in her usual white gown, her hands full of pomegranate seeds.

“It’s traditional, to stay with me,” she says.

And Magdalena is swallowing them before she says it. “You chose not to come back. You weren’t held here.”

“Oh my sweet, I wanted to,” Cleo says, the remaining seeds falling to the ground as she clasps her hands. “Believe me, my soul ached for you every moment.”

“Why?” Magda whispers, tries not to be afraid of what her answer may be.

“Come,” Cleo says, walking her back to the entrance. “I shall show you.”

They arrive to see the fire-girl decapitate the devil, toss his body into the river and his head to the hounds. She nods to Cleo, wiping her blade clean.

“I will retrieve my loved ones, and the realm is yours,” she says.

“Thank you Clary,” Cleo says, and walks Magda to a new room, one with a pair of ivory thrones. “If I came back to you, we would be separated at death, the devil promised me that. So I schemed and traded, and wept near every night hearing your song. But it is  _ ours _ .”

It is not righteous, it is something their selves that fell in love would have abhorred. But Magdalena is no longer a young maiden with romantic dreams, has not been for many moons. And Cleophas has changed too, they’ve carved away so much of themselves to become the gods. Somehow their love remains, was never called upon to sacrifice.

“You have created much in our time apart, I only destroyed,” she says.

Cleo takes her hips lightly, pulls them flush together. “I knew where you were and that you were safe, I dare not think of what I would have done without that knowledge. This realm might have been destroyed.”

She says the last bit with a teasing smile, and Magda laughs though she can imagine Cleophas unmaking it. Only instead of the righteous warrior of old, it is the new soul who takes all she wishes, cannot be stopped for she is already doing all she wants.

Magdalena smiles, has no words left, so she leans up to kiss her. Cleophas’s lips part like an ascension, like they are truly consecrated. Cleo’s fingers search her body, trail over the crooked edges of her lost wings, tears shining bright in her eyes.

“You’ll never need to find me again,” she promises, and Magda knows it to be true.

And so they take their matching thrones, hands held between them, a new eternity beginning.


End file.
